One Panel #191-194: April 1940's Headlines

This week, we're taking a look an old trope, not unique to comics but certainly prevalent in the Golden Age... that of showing newspaper headlines as a way to give exposition. And of course, in comics, you get the craziest headlines! The Daily Planet is probably the worst (cumulative) offender.

Not every item of interest is on the front page, of course. There are also celebrity/human interest pages.

From The Voice: "The Solving of the World's Greatest Counterfeit Case" by Stan Aschmeier, Feature Comics #33 (June 1940)

And while the headline is usually the be-all and end-all, with the article represented by straight or squiggly lines, or perhaps random letters, sometimes it's in a gigantic font you can read from yards away.

From Captain Cook of Scotland Yard: "The Mystery of the Luminous Eyes" by William A. Smith, Smash Comics #11 (June 1940)

Of all the comics I surveyed for this, Smash #11 gets the prize for most newspaper shots. In addition to this one, in the Captain Cook strip, it is used 3 times in Chic Carter Ace Reporter (no surprise, I guess), once in Wings Wendall, and twice in Hugh Hazzard and his Iron Man. There's also an instance of someone reading a headline without us seeing it, and the comic cuts to hand-written letters 3 times. That's a lot of over-the-shoulder reading!